Echo In The Canyon celebrates the explosion of popular music that came out of LA’s Laurel Canyon in the mid-60s as folk went electric and The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield and The Mamas and the Papas gave birth to the California Sound. It was a moment (1965 to 1967) when bands came to LA to emulate The Beatles and Laurel Canyon emerged as a hotbed of creativity and collaboration for a new generation of musicians who would soon put an indelible stamp on the history of American popular music.

Featuring Jakob Dylan, the film explores the Laurel Canyon scene via never-before-heard personal details behind the bands and their songs and how that music continues to inspire today. Echo in the Canyon contains candid conversations and performances with Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys), Michelle Phillips (Mamas & the Papas), Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield), David Crosby (The Byrds), Roger McGuinn (The Byrds) their contemporaries Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash and slightly younger followers Jackson Browne and Tom Petty (in his last film interview) as well as contemporary musicians influenced by their music such as Beck, Fiona Apple, Cat Power, Regina Spektor and Norah Jones.

Director Andre Slater

Andrew Slater began his career in the music industry as a critic before turning to talent management, record producing, and serving as CEO of Capitol Records. He makes his directing debut with Echo in the Canyon. Says Slater of the film, “It’s how The Byrds were listening to The Beatles, and The Beatles were listening to The Beach Boys, and The Beach Boys were listening to The Beatles and how all that cross-pollination happened to create this music that resonates across the world and across time. Jakob [Dylan]’s on a journey, speaking to artists about recording those songs to find out why they wrote them and, in the course of it, he finds out all these personal details behind the songs.”

FILMS WE LIKE

Founded by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential, Altman) Films We Like is a boutique distributor of documentary, independent and international films in Canada. Recent releases include Nico, 1988, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood.